are you good with that?

  Who we really are. I think the majority of us spend our lifetime trying to figure that out or to come to terms with that. The great philosophers in Ancient times struggled with that and it continues to this day. The authentic self. Is that self what we really are or what we wish others to believe it is? That's the question. We all seek validation in some form or another. We do want others to tell us what we are, but we want that to agree with what we wish we were. The further apart those two things are, the more angst we find in our lives. Just why that is depends upon your philosophical bent. Do you believe you are an independent person, that your choices determine your future? You might be an existentialist. That is in its' simplest understanding anyway, I don't pretend to be an expert on any of that. I tend to think more like Socrates did,  that I don't know the answers but instead focus on the questions. Socrates was interested in establishing an ethical code for all of society, for all mankind. A pretty lofty goal  I would say. But I think he was just really telling others his opinions. Certainly he believed in his method of reasoning. You could say, he believed in himself! And today learned scholars have written volumes about him, both good and bad, attempting to define him, to say who he really was. 

  How do you define yourself? By your job, your wealth, your popularity, your "education" level? I put education in parenthesis because obtaining degrees and diplomas doesn't really define education in my opinion, there are a lot of educated damn fools in the world. Do those definitions really define you who are though? No, I don't think that they do. they are simply components of the whole. Who we are is far more complex than any of that. Perhaps we are so complex that we can't understand ourselves. If you believe in God that would certainly be true, it would have to be. We can't know the mind of God! The best we can do is emulate our perception of what God is and how God would react to any given situation. And as we all know, that is subject to interpretation, what I sometimes call, a more convenient faith. See a lot of that these days. The Catholic church is struggling what that right now, in a big way. There are those that openly disagree with the Pope. Not the first time in history, but certainly a major rift. 

 Are we our own God? If that is the case we can then do as we please without divine repercussions, only civil authority is the danger. I don't think anyone believes they are a God, but deny the existence of a God. In that situation civil authority then defines who we are. Then we should react in response to that civil authority without question, without independent thought. The civil authority is God. That's not right though and we all know that. Our founding fathers certainly knew that as they separated church from state. The idea was, the Church would define who we are as a people, the government would regulate civil matters. They even wrote, all men are created equal as an expression of that idea. Anyone could lead! It is up to you to define your role in the world. We all start on equal footing. Small children do not know prejudice, wealth, poverty, social status, appearance or any of that. All that is learned. 

 Who we really are. How do we measure that? What do we compare that against? I'd say we compare it to those that we admired in the past. We learn from others and begin to emulate them. It is often said, "he is just like his father" or something similar. That can be a good thing or a bad thing depending upon your view. Can we really control that? Can we really control who we become? Well, we are back to the beginning aren't we? I'm thinking it is not about who we become, as much as it is accepting who we are. Are you good with that?